Hope through Achievement: The Role of Student Agency in Deep Learning

In this workshop, leaders will come to understand that through our assessment practices – not in spite of them – teachers can build student hope and efficacy, as well as achievement, and it is through student agency that their hope and efficacy can most efficiently and effectively be built. Student agency will lead to students becoming more self-regulatory with their learning.

Assessment is not just a clinical exercise in number crunching; there is a human being on the other end of all assessment decisions and that human being is going to have an emotional reaction to the prospect of being assessed. The real question is whether that emotional reaction is productive or counterproductive. Teachers and administrators have a disproportionate amount of influence over that reaction. Part of that reaction is also influenced by how active (or passive) students are in their learning.

Student agency is part of the much larger picture of students becoming more self-regulatory about their learning. It’s more about student investment than simply ownership. Creating the conditions where students are authentically partners in their own learning is essential (though not always easy) and is how students will become more hopeful and more efficacious about their eventual success.

When students have voice (they can advocate openly for their needs) and choice (they are active decision-makers in the direction of their learning) they will invest in their learning because it’s their learning. Leaders will come to know that some aspects of student learning are inflexible, but there are always aspects that have the flexibility to allow students legitimate control over the direction they take.

This session will also explore the nuances that lead to more impactful inquiry- or project-based learning models as well as a three-phased approach to developing more self-regulatory learners.

Effective Leadership through Assessment

In this workshop, leaders will learn that assessment is the engine of everything of substance in every school. Effective leaders in the 21st century must be able to have substantive and authentic conversations with teachers about assessment and grading in order to lead a meaningful transformation that modernizes not only the assessment paradigm but also the way achievement is reported.

Specifically, we will explore six assessment tenants that will serve as the bedrock upon which excellence in the classroom is achieved. Participants will come to understand the following:

• the process for identifying the cognitive complexity and depth of thinking required for students to reach excellence;
• how to ‘assessment plan’ alongside unit planning; and
• how to develop task-neutral criteria that allows feedback to be transferable.

Additionally, we will discuss the necessary leadership actions and mindsets that lead to a compelling vision for a widespread transformation with assessment and grading. A few of the questions that will be answered are:

• Who should make up the guiding coalition?
• Why is a vision for the transformation essential?
• How do you move from ideas to implementation?
• How does a new paradigm typically emerge within any context?

Leaders need not be the experts in the school, but they need to have the confidence and competence to lead an assessment transformation that aligns with the more sophisticated learning outcomes of the 21st century.

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